« Reply #1588 on: November 05, 2014, 12:48:20 PM »
Thinking long term here (sometime within the next two years) - would want to book 6 business award tickets from NYC to TLV. Trying to figure out which points/miles I should target accumulating. What airlines has the best availability for business class awards tickets without huge surcharges? If I'm already spending 80-150K points per ticket I don't want to spend an extra $500 in surcharges...
Dan recently put out a post on Israel rewards flights (http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/51626). However, he doesn't discuss the difficulty level of finding availability. Realistically, which is the best airline to target?
All of the non-stops (EWR<>TLV on UA; JFK<>TLV on DL; and PHL<>TLV on US) are notoriously difficult as it is, but you can almost surely toss the idea of finding 6 biz tickets on the same plane on your particular dates without lotto-like luck.
If you don't require non-stop, I'd say that Star Alliance is your best bet considering their many partners, but as for which partner, it'll depend on whether you'd spend more miles on UA (160K RT in J) or less miles plus YQ with NH (90K + YQ).
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2015: 116K bkd | 1.6M brnd | F: OZ,NH,AA,EK | J: UA,CA,TK,DL,TN,AF,VA | LIH,NRT,ROR,PEK,CNS,BOB,MEL,TLV & Pacific Hopper